Monday, June 7, 2010

It's officially Katie's next Blog Post! Mark your calendars, everyone! And try to control your bladders & your excitement, I know that was hard for me to do while I was typing this.Word of warning: this will be a LONG post...as Zach said "to make up for all the blog posts I haven't made". Haha. He's a funny guy.

Ok, so last weekend was the Memorial Day long weekend here in the United States of 'Merica, and Zach & I decided to go on a wee roadtrip to Long Beach, WA, because we're a couple of wild & crazy guys! We left the Treasure Valley on Friday evening after work, driving to the lovely (um, boring) town of Kennewick, WA (about a 4 hr drive) to pass out for the night.The next morning, we drove on to our old 'hood, Olympia, WA, to check out what had changed since we'd last been there 3 years ago.We got into the Olympia/Tumwater area in the early afternoon, and drove around town for a little while, stopping by Zach's old workplace (Department of Revenue), as well as our old apartment complex and my old workplace (Cascade Billing Company, which was right next to our old apartment complex). The most shocking change we found was across the street from our old apartment complex, which (when we lived there) was all forested - the trees have all been cleared, and a HEINOUS-looking housing development has been built there. The "houses" (I use that term very loosely) have a great view of the area, which is probably the only thing going for them. As Dad always said, if you live in it, you don't have to look at it! To each their own, I guess!

After we got over that monstrosity, we headed to our hotel & checked in, before going over to our friends Joey & Sam's house, to visit with them & their 17-month-old adorable little girl, Cecelia. Once Cecelia was out for the night (uh, and the babysitter showed up!), we all went down to the Fish Brew Pub - Fish Tale Ales is an organic Olympia brewery with awesome beer as well as apple & pear ciders. We had a great meal (I had the fish tacos which had grilled cod with an awesome non-mayonnaise-y coleslaw on top; Zach had the beer-battered cod & chips, which he also loved), and we drank an excellent pitcher (or two! between the 4 of us) of their Wild Salmon Organic Pale Ale.We then went to an old hang-out - a Karaoke bar, of all places! Sam is an awesome singer, and we used to go there a few Saturday nights a month to drink some beer & be entertained by all the talented (and not-so-talented!) singers...Sam sang a few songs, including Simon & Garfunkel's "Cecelia" - it was shockingly the first time he'd ever sang that song in the 17 months his daughter's been alive! We also got to experience what I think was by far the worst rendition of "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay" I have ever heard...if I hadn't seen the words on the Karaoke screen, I never in a million years would have guessed what song was being butchered! The poor woman only knew 1 note, but she stuck with it for the whole song...good for her, I guess!After that debacle, we called it a night & headed back to our hotel.Sunday morning, we spent some time wandering the Olympia Famer's Market. We picked up a huge bag of amazing Washington State cherries (strangely, cherries are not the best roadtrip food...who would have thought?! heehee), as well as some apples & bison pepperoni (Helmut's German Deli in Vernon, BC has absolutely nothing to worry about - their bison pepperoni still has first place in our hearts!). We got a few (rainy-weather) pictures of the Port of Olympia (NYK shockingly doesn't have service to this port!), checked out Capitol Lake and then headed out of town, on our way to Long Beach.

We made a stop in the tiny fishing town of Westport, WA, and checked out the (busy!) marina there...the real highlight of this stop was seeing a (gigantic!) sea lion swimming through the marina...Zach tried to get a picture when it's head was above the water, but it was too quick! Mom, I seriously thought it was a silkie! We really only got to see it's head a few times, and one of it's flippers, but it was really long & very cool!

After I got my fill of Irish folklore & marine life, we continued on to our final destination for the day - Long Beach! We checked into our little bungalow. Please notice in the picture of the interior of the bungalow, that the short, white, open door is the door into the ITSY BITSY bathroom. The door frame was literally as tall as Zach's chin, and the shower head in the (tiny) shower was about the same height! We didn't include a picture of the bathroom but it was covered in totally retro mint/avocado green tile, and was so tiny we both had to be careful not to smash elbows/butts/miscellaneous body parts while getting dried off! It was an adventure!

We walked along the boardwalk on Long Beach for awhile, but it was pretty rainy, so we decided to go on a car ride to a little town called Oysterville, that our friends Karen & Shaun (from Olympia) had recommended to us. (sidenote: we would have visited with them while we were in Olympia, but they chose that weekend to visit Vancouver, of all places!)Oysterville was adorable - a little "town" stuck in the 1800's, with beautiful beach-front houses, an old schoolhouse & an adorable little church with a steeple that looked like a lighthouse! Also, we definitely picked the right time to travel through the Pacific Northwest, because apparently the end of May is RHODO BLOOMING SEASON! It was absolutely insane & beautiful - rhodos were EVERYWHERE, and in amazing colours...some were so big they reached the 2nd storey of the houses they were in front of!We ate some dinner (We tried some PNW oysters that were pretty darn awesome), and went to bed early, to prepare for a long day of driving on Monday!

Monday morning, we checked out Cape Disappointment & a cool old lighthouse...the terrain at both was really rocky & impressive! We drove over the (4 mile long) bridge into Astoria, OR, and stopped at the Rogue Public House as they make some of Zach's favourite beers. We had a tasty lunch - I had a grilled salmon filet burger, Zach had a $10 haute dog - no really, that's what it's called - with caramelized onions & bleu cheese served with a mustard made with ale. We also tried a few of their beers, my favorite being their honey orange wheat beer (it was too citrusy for Zach, but then again...he crazy!)After driving around Astoria for a bit (and passing the school that Kindergarten Cop was filmed at! Alas, no sightings of the house that Goonies was filmed at), we headed over to Portland.I made Zach stop at the Dave's Killer Bread store so we could pick up some stuff we can't get in Boise, and from there, we drove allllll the way back to Boise. this portion of the trip was complete with a HORRENDOUS driving experience in Eastern Oregon where (due to highway construction for what felt like 300 miles) the oncoming lane of highway traffic was separated from us by flimsy bendable orange marker posts - thank you, Oregon Department of Transportation, you supreme jerks! With the combination of rain, wet pavement, the glare of oncoming traffic lights, it made for some white-knuckle driving! We made it, though, and arrived home around 12:30pm.

Tuesday morning came waaaaaay too early, but it was well worth the great trip! Unfortunately it rained almost the entire time, but it was still a trip filled with great friends, great food and great scenery & views!

Phew...ok, I'm FINALLY done. Before I go, I'd like to thank Zach for downloading a bunch of great music onto the Ipod for the trip...and would also like to take this opportunity to point out to everyone that one of the songs he downloaded was MARIAH FREAKING CAREY. Yes, my husband who used to be addicted to hardcore heavy metal also likes to rock out to "I'll Be There". Don't get me wrong, I belted that song out at the top of my lungs (to his chagrin, I'm sure!), but...um...I'm a GIRL!I'm sure Dave will defend Zach's choice!

Ok, that's it! See you all in another 6 months or so, when it's time for me to blog again! Juuuust kidding...I know I need to do this more regularly, so you don't get a massive monsoon post from me every 6 months!

Sounds like you had a great trip inspite of the rain. Great picture of the pelican. Did you zoom in or were you able to get really close? Everytime you talk about the variety of beer/ale you try I regret not being a beer drinker. I would have the cider though! That is what Mom and I drank throughout Ireland while Dad did the beer sampling.

We were pretty close to the pelican (maybe 20 ft) but there is additional zoom being used.

It's a good thing we don't have a fancy ale house like the one in Astoria nearby. I'd probably never leave! I would have to do some serious beer sampling if I ever found myself in Ireland - or pretty much anywhere in Europe!